Tag Archives: jekyll and hyde

November 8, 2025 · 5:17 am

A movie can’t be visited by the suck fairy if it sucked from the start: two films

I rewatched THE MAN WITH 2 HEADS (1972) — Turner Classic’s website says the title was an attempt to mockbuster the movie The Thing With Two Heads — because I found I hadn’t written up my notes and barely remembered the movie. Possibly I blocked it out because it’s wretched low-budget crap, about the level of a mediocre high-school stage play and with way too much time devoted to Hyde abusing his mistress. The abuse scenes in the 1932 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are horrible but this one seems to dwell on them more gratuitously. Perhaps because that’s all we see of the victim, without the Jekyll/Ivy early encounter from 1932; perhaps because the movie’s overall quality is so much worse.

The science is idiotic, too; admittedly that’s true of lots of these adaptations, but I’m feeling judgy here. Jekyll’s research develops 1)a treatment that detects the presence of evil because it’s a biochemical problem; 2)a vaccine to restore the brain biochemistry. Burt how can injecting guinea pigs or dogs with drug A prove that it detects evil? Animals aren’t. Interestingly, the problem with drug B is that Jekyll’s assistant messed up his formula — does that mean it would have worked if it had been the right formula? In any case, very not-recommended. “There’s nothing a man likes more than to come home to a beautiful wife, a good cigar and his dog. Only you’re not so beautiful and I don’t have a dog.”

Ang Lee, who can direct both personal drama (The Ice Storm) and action (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) should have been a natural for HULK (2003) but despite online articles arguing it’s an underappreciated gem, it’s a tedious bore. Though Lee did make a great call casting Sam Elliott (above) as Thunderbolt Ross.

I think it start’s to go wrong in the opening, giving us the backstory on David Banner’s (Nick Nolte) experimental genetic/immunological research, his conflict with Ross and how David’s son Bruce (Eric Bana) wound up with a genetic quirk that turns him into the Hulk after doses of nanobots and gamma rays). I think it’s to set up the film’s theme that Bruce and Betty Ross (Jennifer Connolly) are coping with trauma inflicted by their distant fathers but it comes off as generic mad-scientist stuff on David’s part. Making him “David” obviously hat-tips the Bill Bixby TV series; like the series, this assumes the Hulk is born of a pre-existing mutation rather than gamma radiation alone but I don’t thinks this adds much.

Bana’s Bruce comes off not so much repressed (which Anthony Andrews pulls off beautifully) as bland. He saw his father’s rage close up (as we learn in flashback), strong feelings are anathema to him, though he may not realize it. That killed his romance with Betty. Peter David introduced this idea in his long and memorable run on the Hulk, which built heavily on Barry Windsor-Smith’s concept of the Hulk as a product of Bruce’s child abuse. I think (as I did at the time) the movie would have worked better without this concept — lord knows, it’s not like turning into a rampaging, destructive giant couldn’t give Bruce enough trauma.

The Hulk Smash side of the movie is okay, but not memorable. The power level here is much closer to the Hulk in the comics than Lou Ferrigno was but the CGI Hulk is less interesting on screen that the flesh-and-blood Lou Ferrigno smashing things.

While some reviews gush over Lee trying to do some serious character stuff in a superhero movie, the Bixby pilot film did that and did it better. Hell, Raimi’s Spider-Man, which much more comic-book, still dealt with Peter’s personal pain and angst. Ultimately Ang Lee’s film doesn’t bring anything memorable to the table. “It was as if she and the knife … merged.”

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November 7, 2025 · 4:15 pm

When life gives you lemons … sometimes you wind up eating lemons

Usually, for obvious reasons, I try not to schedule lots of contractors and errands for the same week, unless I’m taking a day off to deal with all of them. This week, though? Monday, Trixie’s health checkup. Tuesday, a contractor checking our basement dehumidifier still runs smoothly. Except after waiting for them (and trying not to be embroiled anything when they showed) they had to postpone to Wednesday.
Wednesday? The first contractor, plus a foundations checkup. Thursday? Trixie in for some scheduled tests.

That’s a lot of extra time and distraction. Plus somehow we had the housecleaners assigned to come Thursday and neither of us put it on the calendar. That meant three hours sitting in the spare bedroom comforting the cats. It’s surprisingly numbing. And because the cleaners were three hours late, that threw my schedule further off (I postponed stuff because I didn’t want to be in the middle of it when they arrived). I made a run to Dudley’s eye doctor to pick up some of his various drugs today; I could have done that yesterday if I’d known I’d have the time. And Trixie had to wait twonextra hours at the vet before we could reach her.

Plus the effect of a couple of nights of really bad sleep.

On the plus side, the house inspection stuff went great: no massively expensive repairs required. Trixie’s Monday recheck found she needs added daily exercises but no major problems. Thursday, we won’t know for a while. And if nothing else, having the cleaners in on a day when I was already off my game may mean more productivity later this month

The end result? I got some good work done on Jekyll and Hyde though nowhere near what I wanted to. I also sold two copies of Sex for Dinner, Death for Breakfast — whoever bought them, thank you!

I also turned in two stories for The Local Reporter, one on the biannual Carrboro record show, and one on Mental Health First Aid. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about Jack Kirby’s Forever People and about the story rebooting Flash’s wife Iris into a Time Traveler. How the CW missed that when it’s Flash show had so much time travel, I’ll never know.

And here’s a link to a Con-tinual panel I participated in on magic in comics and another on best and worst team leaders.

Next week should be a lot easier. Fingers crossed.

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November 1, 2025 · 5:15 am

Bill Bixby, I owe you an apology

Back when CBS’ The Incredible Hulk was on the air, I was in college. I largely skipped it but caught one episode when I was home on break. I didn’t care for it.

The plot of “Never Give a Trucker an Even Break” has David Banner (Bill Bixby) unwittingly embroiled in a battle between a pretty trucker (Jennifer Darling) and a gang of hijackers — a battle the latter would win except David keeps getting angry and hulking out. It struck me as a story that could fit into any of TV’s wandering-hero series, except with the Hulk as a deus ex machina.

Wandering heroes were a thing in the 1960s. Route 66. Then Came Bronson. Run, Buddy Run. Characters criss-crossing the country, dropping into small towns or big cities, then moving on; I’m not sure if it was the zeitgeist or the flexibility it gave writers in terms of stories but it was way popular.

Most significant for the purpose of this post was The Fugitive, which ran from 1963 to 1967. Richard Kimble, convicted of the murder of his wife, travels across country hunting the one-armed man who really killed her, pursued by the cop who thinks Kimble’s guilty as sin. That template — wandering hero is both pursuer and pursued — would inspire lots of later specfic show, including The Immortal, The Phoenix, Starman and a bunch of shows that never got past the pilot movie stage.

Rewatching The Incredible Hulk for Jekyll and Hyde, I like it much, much better. I wonder if that’s because wandering heroes, particularly the Fugitive-knockoff type, aren’t as much of a thing any more? But definitely it’s much superior to my memory of it. That’s all the more impressive given that producer Kenneth Johnson wasn’t at all enthused about doing a comic book show. He didn’t like the “incredible Hulk” name, didn’t like Bruce Banner’s alliterative moniker (hence changing his given name to David) and didn’t want it to look too comic-book. Nevertheless, he made a good show out of it.

A lot of that is due to Bill Bixby in the lead (with Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk of course). He’s a good actor and really radiates decency. As my fellow Atomic Junk shop blogger Greg Hatcher (now deceased, alas) puts it, his first thought when he recovers from hulking out is “what did I break this time? Who did I hurt?” The trucker episode works because he spends much of it with this baffled smile reflecting that he has no idea what the heck is going on.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1977) was the movie that started it all. A year ago David lost his beloved wife (Lara Parker of Dark Shadows) in a car crash. Since then he and research partner Elaina (Susan Sullivan) have been researching the question of how some people exhibit superhuman strength in a crisis enabling them to save lives, because David would very much like to know why he couldn’t do that. It turns out to be a combination of genetics — David has the same DNA element as the “lift the car off my kid” people — and gamma radiation from sunspots (not hitting David at the time). David decides to test himself late at night by using a gamma-radiation device to dose himself (the one weak moment — I don’t buy he couldn’t have waited) but it’s wired to give off way more radiation than the dial says.

Later, when David’s driving home in pouring rain, his car gets a flat. He gets out to change it, gets increasingly frustrated and suddenly he changes … the Hulk is born.

By the end of the movie, thanks to an unwitting screw up by tabloid reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin), Elaina’s dead, the Hulk is blamed for killing both her and David and Dr. Banner is on the run, searching for a cure. McGee, as we learn in subsequent stories, is in pursuit.

It’s a good movie, well acted, mostly effective special effects and the Hulk shows more power than I remembered. It pointedly sets up that for all his rage, the Hulk is still David and “David Banner doesn’t kill.” The Hulk never punches anyone, just throws them aside (which is bad enough but it’s easier to believe they’ll walk away)

The follow up movie A Death in the Family, AKA Return of the Hulk, is underwhelming. David gets a gig working on a paraplegic young woman’s estate, only to discover her widowed stepmom is paying the woman’s doctor to poison her (the real reason she can’t walk). It’s very much a stock Wandering Hero story and made me think I was right to avoid the show.

No, I wasn’t. Johnson and his writers (he wrote some shows, not all), and Bixby’s performance manage to make the shows absorbing. Even the Hulk is more than the deus ex I thought; multiple episodes show that like his comic-book counterpart he’s capable of being tender and protective in many situations. And his feats of strength, if not up to the comics, are pretty impressive. There’s a reason it ran five seasons when other Marvel attempts to hit live-action TV flatlined.

The Wandering Hero aspect does have its drawbacks, particularly as I had to binge the first season. Some sketchy geography (this week in NYC, next week in San Diego!). Too many romances, all the more awkward when he’s still grieving his beloved wife and then Elaina. McGee has little purpose in most episodes other than a goad to keep David moving on. This aspect also makes me aware how times have changed: this was an era when you could walk in and get a job without a background check or providing a list of every job you’ve ever had back to your college days.

I may not get to more of the series before the book wraps up but having bought the DVD set I’ll definitely watch it all.

Art top to bottom by Jack Kirby, Marie Severin, Kirby again, Severin again. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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October 31, 2025 · 4:21 pm

They said it couldn’t be done. Wait, who are they and why do I care what they say?

I did it.

Working like crazy I got a very crude first draft of Jekyll and Hyde.

By which I mean I’ve assigned everything to chapters (some entries will be shifted around to make the lengths right) and taken all my scribbled (okay, typed) notes and turned them into synopses and commentary. Not all of it’s well written and I still have some things to watch (Hulk MCU movies for instance) but I set that as my goal and I pulled it off.

No particular trick to it, just that I prioritized writing and really made myself focus. Go me. This will make it easier to balance time next month between viewing stuff (TV, movies that need rewatching) and rewriting.

That was 90 percent of my writing week. The rest included little stuff (applying to next year’s ConGregate and ConCarolinas cons) and The Local Reporter. One of my articles was on an ongoing Carrboro lawsuit against Duke Energy. Another article dealt with a site offering Chapel Hill High School’s digitized annuals online and the differences between 1925 and 1973. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about Jack Kirby’s Hairies, successes and failures in late 1970 Marvel Comics —

— and the moment Superman discovered all kryptonite on Earth was common iron!

In other news Dudley is feeling very lively, enough to think he can run down the stairs. We have so far prevented this. Stitches come out Saturday which will be good (no risk of it getting infected if he rolls or licks it). Several weeks of care after that.

Plus I finally got my iridotomy eye surgery scheduled!

So a pretty good week. And as it’s Halloween, have a closing image:

Comics art by John Buscema (top) and Curt Swan. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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October 25, 2025 · 5:05 am

Two movies (the same movie twice?) and a play

SYMBIOPSYCHOTOXIPLASM (1968) is an arty metatextual film about director William Greaves filming various couples working out their romantic issues in Central Park, but also filming himself, his cast and his crew making the movie we’re watching. That leads to discussion of the acting challenges, the director musing on his role and the crew arguing they’re the only ones who truly get Greaves’ vision.

This could easily have been pretentious crap that appeals only to clever people talking loudly in restaurants (to use Monty Python’s phrase) but it works as a quirky piece. The Take One was added to the name when Take Two came out in 2005. “What makes you think everyone else is so stupid and you’re so smart?”

Greaves’ SYMBIOPSYCHOTOXIPLASM Take 2 1/2 (2005) is less interesting because 90 percent of it remakes the original film and I’ve seen that one. Greaves argues at one point that it’s not the same movie because everyone working on it is aware of the original — but that doesn’t affect what we actually see. “That’s the way life works — every situation is without precedent.”

AFTER YOU MR. HYDE is a musical stage production starring Alfred Drake (as Jekyll and Hyde) and Nancy Dussault (as his fiancee Margaret) that New England’s Goodspeed Opera House (which provided the photo above for use in my book) staged in 1968. I was lucky enough to find a recording on YouTube, though as it was taken by an audience member and doesn’t include video (not feasible back in the pre-cellphone days) I couldn’t gather much.

What I did learn (partly from notes at the link) is that this was the basis for the ABC Kirk Douglas musical. Like a lot of stage-to-screen adaptations, they’re quite different; the only songs that survive are “Something Very, Very Good” and “I Bought a Bicycle” (the result of Hyde’s libertine ways loosening his regular self up a little). And the stage show’s ending has Jekyll commit suicide, leaving his friend’s baffled what could drive the doctor to that step. “The good in me emerges/purged of evil urges/What a splendid plan!”

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October 24, 2025 · 4:15 pm

Nobody knows what it’s like — to be the sad dog

Due to Plushie’s leg problems I often wind up sitting in the cage so he can snuggle with me. As I’m Trixie’s human, she’s not happy about this.

I do my best to give her extra snuggles when we’re sitting together.

Plushie’s surgery was Tuesday. I took it off and tackled various odds and ends as I couldn’t get my head in the game for any writing. Happily Plushie came through it like a trooper. It was necessary too, as the surgeon cleared out a couple of other problems in the knee area. Oh, and our insurer came across and will cover around 90 percent. Yay.

Wednesday was a rough day; if I hadn’t been working on a Local Reporter story about Carrboro city council I’d probably have taken that one off too. The big problem was that Plushie cannot be allowed to lick his wound. They gave us a sleeve to put on the leg and he reacted very aggressively to having the bad place touched, almost biting TYG. Worse, we have to take it off when he goes out, then put it back on again. Eventually we resolved things simply by switching to the cone of shame. He can’t get the leg and he’s much more compliant. He’s also on heavy drugs so in between meals or walks, he largely dozes and I can sit with Trixie.

Other than Plush Dudley, what’s up? Well, the week started on a disappointing note. I’d made an appointment to donate blood as soon as I was able (there’s a four-month wait between power red donations). It was a close place so I got there with plenty of time, the line moved fast, I was hooked up … and then the phlebotomist kept telling me I was squeezing too hard (they have us squeeze a sponge strip to keep the blood going) and my muscles were interfering. And that I was moving my arm, same problem. Sure enough, the machine got part way through the process, then stopped. I suggested trying again; the rather pissed off phlebotomist told me no, I’d used up my slot and would have to wait the usual four months, event though I’d barely donated.

I left in a bad mood. I’ve never had that motion problem before; have I developed some tic that’s causing a problem? Are my veins scarring over enough that even slight motion is a problem? Either of these is possible, though it’s also possible my phlebotomist screwed up in some fashion.

Sunday, though, TYG and I took a nice walk around a nearby lake, though the water was low.

The work week was good. Website glitches stopped me posting anything at Atomic Junk Shop but my two Local Reporter stories from last week are up, one about a 55-year-old Carrboro daycare center and one on Carrboro’s challenges to development.

And then there was Jekyll and Hyde. I’ve now got a solid rough draft of 60,000 words. There’s more to come but realizing how much writing I’ve done makes me feel much better about my progress. Still more work ahead, of course, but I’ll get there.

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October 18, 2025 · 5:15 am

Jekyll and Hyde cast Dark Shadows

I can thank my brother for reminding me that DARK SHADOWS included a Jekyll and Hyde plotline though my research reading would have tipped me off to it anyway.

The legendary supernatural soap concerns Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a vampire from the 1700s released in the present where he winds up protecting his modern-day kin from assorted supernatural threats. Other characters included Quentin Collins (David Selby), immortal werewolf; Willie Loomis (John Karlen), Barnabas’ sniveling, perpetually frustrated Renfield; Elizabeth Stoddard, the family matriarch (Joan Bennett); Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall), a doctor and haematologist helping Barnabas; Angelique (Lara Parker), Barnabas’ witch wife and tormentor; and Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), the reincarnation of Barnabas’ lost love Josette.

The story takes place in 1970 as one of the plot strands in the “parallel time” era. After Barnabas and his kin defeat the Lovecraftian Leviathans, Barnabas wanders into Collinswood’s east wing and discovers a gateway into another timeline. Watching, he discovers that in that timeline he married Josette, lived a happy mortal life and rose not from his grave. He stumbles across the time boundary only for Willie’s counterpart — author Will Loomis — to trap Barnabas in his coffin and force him to recount the truth about his life, which Loomis will turn into a book. This kept Barnabas offstage while filming House of Dark Shadows, the theatrical spinoff movie (I believe Maggie’s absent from a chunk of this plotline for the same evening).

The Jekyll figure is Cyrus Longworth (Christopher Pennock), BFF to Quentin Collins, here the head of the clan and newly married to Maggie. The opening of the story has Cyrus making the usual research into dividing our good and evil natures. As in the Jack Palance adaptation Curtis produced a couple of years earlier, Cyrus wakes up the morning after testing his drug with no memory of where he’s been; there’s a bottle in his pocket, though, and other evidence he’s been having a very wild night.

Initially Cyrus’ new life as John Yaeger follows the movie’s plot arc but not entirely. For one thing he has a fiancee, Sabrina (Lisa Richards), which Palance’s Jekyll didn’t. For another, Cyrus is caught up in the other plotlines swirling around Quentin — is his late first wife Angelique really dead (yes, but she gets better)? Can Maggie step into Angelique’s shoes (a plotline borrowing heavily from Rebecca)? While Yaeger takes the usual mistress (as Palance’s Hyde did), she doesn’t die, she simply vanishes from the story once Cyrus falls in love with Maggie (maybe she was just a placeholder until Scott got through with the movie?).

Once Cyrus meets Maggie, realizes she’s having trouble with her marriage (Angelique’s ghost is undermining it) and falls for her, things get creepy. Cyrus is too inhibited to make a move (his love for Sabrina doesn’t figure in at all) but if he becomes Yaeger again …and he does, and winds up kidnapping Maggie and eventually murdering Sabrina.

While Cyrus’ addiction to his free, daring life as John Yaeger is normal enough for a Jekyll, he’s carrying a great deal of self-loathing. Yaeger laughs at Sabrina “Don’t you have any idea how much he hated being himself?” I think he’s quite sincere.

Overall it’s an interesting take, well-performed by Pennock.

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October 17, 2025 · 5:15 am

Inch by inch, I crawl towards glory!

Which is to say this was a week of solid but unspectacular progress. Sufficient but no “I can coast now!” But “sufficient” is good.

It was an oddly disorganized week, though I can’t pin down why. Sunday afternoon it started with a zoom call for the new Ceaseless Way anthology. We’re not making the original deadline for getting all our stories in but we’re only slightly behind, much closer than we managed on the first book. We’re also beginning the critiquing, starting with my friend Ada Milenkovic Brown’s stories (I’ll get to them next week). Then come mine.

I got three Local Reporter stories in, though none of them are on the website yet. I also got back into the swing of Atomic Junk Shop blogging after several weeks away: one on the Sub-Mariner’s 1970 engagement, one on changing creative teams of the same era and one with cool comics images and the stories behind them.

Then there’s Jekyll and Hyde. I got a couple more chapters finished, completed watching Dark Shadows (er, that is, the portion relevant to my book), and watched the two Incredible Hulk TV pilot movies. Next week, more focus on writing, less on TV.

We’ve submitted the Plush One’s appeal for his CCR damage to the insurer but I’m still waiting on my eye doctor to deal with the insurance preapproval or to give me the information to handle it. Their office says it’s a billing-office problem, billing-office says not; given this was the doctor’s recommendation and they’re getting paid for it — it’s not like I’m challenging a bill — I’m baffled why this is such a slog.

Plushie is holding up well — if anything, he’s quite lively as he adjusts to his new situation. Still very needy so I sit with him in the cage a fair amount. As the vet said, he would probably end up okay if we didn’t give him the surgery but we think the outcomes are better this way. It’s next week, followed by a long stretch of recuperation. And then hopefully. as normal as our addled doggie ever gets.

I do feel a little dispirited realizing the year is ending and finishing Jekyll and Hyde will be the only goal I accomplish. I will have it done, and that’s something, but at my age the sense of running out of time constantly gnaws at me. But if I can focus as effectively on my writing next year … we’ll see.

Ceaseless Way cover by GetCovers based on concepts by Arden Brooks. Comics images by Jack Kirby (top) and Sal Buscema. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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October 11, 2025 · 5:15 am

Wednesday’s child is full of woe, but I watched her anyway

When WEDNESDAY debuted on Netflix three years back, I caught the first episode. Perfectly competent, didn’t really interest me … though it’s interesting that it exists at all.

Charles Addams’ cartoons in the New Yorker about a ghoulish, creepy family came to the small screen as The Addams Family in 1964 (first season review here, second here). 90 percent of what we associate with the Addams came from TV: names, characterizations, the searing passion of Gomez and Morticia. The premise of the show was that the Addams see themselves as a perfectly nice suburban family like anyone else, always friendly, helpful and considerate; half the time they don’t even notice everyone around them is freaking out. Lynn Spigel argues that like most 1960s paranormal sitcoms the characters stand in for “what if Irish or Italians moved in next door?” which was no longer an acceptable premise, and also subvert and twist the standard family sitcom tropes.

After a Saturday morning cartoon a few years later, the Addams vanished except in syndication (syndicated network reruns on local TV stations used to keep old series running for years) and the occasional special (Screen Rant has a good list) but then the 1990s gave us the movies Addams Family and Addams Family Values. Impeccably cast (Raul Julia as Gomez, Anjelica Huston as Morticia, Christopher Lloyd as Fester) it kept the characters but made them much closer in tone to the original cartoons. This family really did seem ghoulish and creepy. The movies are fun but my heart will always be with the original TV show.

The breakout star of the movies was a young Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams, here ghoulish and slightly murderous to boot, all delivered in a deliciously deadpan tone. Her star turn elevated Wednesday from the kid of the original series to a central character … which is how we wound up with Wednesday.

Jenna Ortega delivers a great deadpan performance as Wednesday, shipped off to the Nevermore boarding school where her parents met; retaliating against the jocks bullying her brother Pugsley (they were swim team, she put piranhas in the pool) has convinced them leaving her to mingle with “normies” isn’t wise. Nevermore is home to Outcasts — witches, werewolves, sirens, gorgons, making it feel a lot like Monster High (here’s a more detailed breakdown). Inevitably the dour, tart-tongued Wednesday is paired with sunny werewolf Enid (Emma Myers) as her roommate, the perfect dioscuri for her (unsurprisingly Enidsday gets shipped a lot).

Where the original TV series was intrusion fantasy — the Addams were one weird paranormal thing in an otherwise normal world — Wednesday is much more urban fantasy, where our world is host to lots of different supernaturals, even if the normies don’t see it. Part of my lack of interest after watching E1 (“Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe” — all episodes have “woe” in the title somewhere) was that while it was well done it wasn’t “my” Addams Family.

And probably that teenage drama interests me less at my age than it did a few decades back, even when it’s well-executed. Plus the producers are Gough and Millar of Smallville and that never worked for me either.

Also I’ve always preferred Thing reaching out of the box in the original show to the detached hand running around. Yes, classic Thing was cheap special effects but that hand was definitely attached to Something we never saw; that’s creepier.

But regardless, when I learned there’s a type of Outcast called a “hyde” — a seeming ordinary human who mutates into a grotesque monster under stress — I binged S1 this week. It’s not a major entry in Jekyll and Hyde, but I like to catch even the little ones.

At the end of S1, Wednesday spots a monster murdering a student. In the best tradition the body disappears and nobody, not even perky Enid, likes Wednesday enough to believe her. Naturally she starts investigating, with occasional support from friendly teacher Thornhill (Christina Ricci). It soon becomes obvious something bad is going down … but what? The mystery makes this even more Monster High: we have a Hyde as villain, and its handler plans to destroy the school the way Eddie Hyde did in the Monster High movie.

As there’s more Hyde stuff in S2 I may give that a watch, if I have time. If not, I think I’ll be fine as is. “Dead people are notoriously bad at returning calls.”

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October 10, 2025 · 4:30 pm

Plushie misbehaved

After his three-day binge, we had no choice but to throw him in the drunk tank.

Seriously, he’s fine. And behaving reasonably well, given he’s stuck in the cage. Fortunately his pain meds leave him sleeping a lot. Physically he’s feeling good enough he wants to jump, run, etc. We do not give him the chance. And I’m getting better at giving him all his added new exercises.

This week, I managed my time better than last week, despite another wave of distractions: some questions about Plushie’s surgery and insurance coverage, trying to get information from my eye doctor for my own insurer. Running out midweek to replenish some doggie drugs. Plus one of our neighbors had surgery so TYG volunteered to walk the dog part of the time. That turned into walking morning and evening this week and part of next (she’s very fond of the dog). That throws my morning schedule off more than you might think.

Despite all that, I got some good work done. Three stories in at The Local Reporter. One about a 98-year-old local author, is fun, one of the occasional ones I write that might be enjoyable to non-locals. Above is one of the photos we didn’t use, uranium glass from her collection. The other two stories involve a long-delayed development project and the ongoing debate over making East Weaver Street a no-car zone.

I rewrote a couple of chapters from Jekyll and Hyde. I didn’t get as far as I wanted but the improvement is visible, at least to me. And I’m getting a sense of how long my chapters should be; McFarland wants them roughly equal and I think around 6,500 will do as a goal.

That was about it, as my writing projects are reporting and Jekyll/Hyde the rest of the year. No Atomic Junk Shop because of schedule conflicts last week.Oh, one thing I forgot last week: we had the power go out early Tuesday morning and it was projected to come back on after six hours, which would have spoiled everything in the fridge I bought that weekend and the food I’d cooked that day. Amazingly it came on in just three hours — food saved! But man, it’s been so long since the power was out in the night, I’d forgotten how utterly pitch black it gets. Fortunately nobody invaded from the Dark Dimension and we soon had torches and battery powered lights going.

Last weekend we had our most expensive date of the year: shopping at Costco. Fortunately we’ve done it enough not to buy more stuff than we have space for, or will use, or shouldn’t use (big bags of cookies, bad!).

And that wraps it up. Cover by Carmine Infantino, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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